Ask before you send: best practice in email marketing

You meet someone at a networking event. They are interested in your business and give you their card. Can you start sending them your email newsletters right away? Or should you ask permission? Bryony Thomas debates the issue

Before we start, let’s declare a bias here, I’m a big believer in asking for marketing permission. I see gaining permission as a bit of milestone in relationship building.

But it’s not always straight-forward. If you go to a networking event and exchange business cards with someone, should you take that as a green light to add them to your mailing list for your email newsletter?

Let’s look at the pros and cons.

Reasons for assuming marketing permission on the basis of exchanging a business card:

• They’ve given you their card with their email address, so that means they don’t mind you emailing them.
• If you give them the option to unsubscribe, that constitutes choice and respect for their preferences.
• Hitting delete or unsubscribe is easy, so you’re not really putting the recipient to any trouble.
• They may never have subscribed otherwise, and they may well find your newsletter riveting.
• Getting people to actively sign up for email is hard work.
• Email marketing is a numbers game, so you want to get it out to as many people as possible.
• It’s not illegal.

Arguments against assumed email permission:

• It’s commonly seen as best practice across the marketing industry.
• It’s polite to ask people before sending them blanket emails.
• The practice makes some people very angry, and will often lower their opinion of you and your organisation.
• With the advent of smart phones, most people receive email wherever they are and it can be highly disruptive to receive such email on the move.
• If you assume permission you can’t easily get recipients to state preferences, like frequency and areas of interest.
• Inbox management is often cited as a cause of workplace stress.
• You can’t as easily measure how interested people are.
• Free email marketing systems, like Mailchimp, make it very easy to ask for permission.
• Email marketing is an engagement game, it’s quality not quantity that counts.
• It may not be illegal in the letter of the law (debatable) but it’s certainly not in the spirit of the law.

So why do people assume permission just because they’ve met at a networking event?

Because they’re lazy

Having a system in place that allows you to politely ask for email permission as part of your networking follow up takes a little effort. But not a lot. After a networking event we pop the details of the business cards we’ve received in our database. We tag them with a code indicating they are to be asked for email permission. At the end of the month we email the tagged contacts giving details of our newsletter, a list of benefits and a link to previous newsletters the sign-up form. They can then actively choose whether to opt-in.

This doesn’t stop you emailing them as one individual to another, to ask them for a coffee or for their advice on something – that is indeed why they gave you their card, it just means that you don’t send them newsletters or offers by email.

Because they’re scared

Many people believe that if they don’t sign people up quickly after meeting them they will have missed their chance. Again, I don’t agree. There are other ways to stay in touch and gain permission when the time is right. We connect with interesting people we’ve met in many ways. We hook up on LinkedIn, follow them on Twitter (we include links to the sign-up form in our online profiles), or meet them in person for a coffee. Each of these settings offer an opportunity to ask for permission and allows them to opt-in if and when they want to.

Don’t be afraid of a small mailing list. A small email list filled with interested and engaged people is much better than a vast list of people who really don’t care about what you have to say.

And, don’t be offended if people don’t sign-up, it doesn’t mean that they don’t like your company, it just means they don’t want your email.

Because they’re rude

The third possibility is one I dearly wish wasn’t true, but it is. Some people really do think that it’s OK to send you email that you didn’t ask for. I mean unsubscribe is pretty easy isn’t it? Well, no not always. For example, many people receive emails via their phone where unsubscribing is often a tricky. This means they simply delete the email, only to get it again next month.

Is making an assumption worth it?

It’s true that you can’t please all of the people all of the time but you can be sure to infuriate some of the people every time you assume email permission. As such, is it really worth it? Moving to an active opt-in might lose you a few people you may previously have captured, but it will gain you a more loyal and engaged audience in the long term.

Bryony Thomas is an expert contributor to Marketing Donut and a marketing consultant, speaker, and author. Her first book – Watertight Marketing – will be available early in 2013. 

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Find more articles, videos and tools on email marketing in the Resources box on the right.